WHO NEEDS AA? –
Feb. 25, 2026 – Like millions of Americans, I wanted to quit or dramatically cut my drinking. But I didn’t want to “surrender” to anything, nor to spend my whole life making amends and walking a path of eternal deprivation and self-denial like I saw in popular recovery communities. I needed agency, a plan of action to see booze as the enemy of the better, healthier, more optimized me—and, apparently, routine reminders in video form that drinking sucks. YouTube had my back.
The more videos I watched, the more YouTube surfaced content from the kind of people, mostly men, I would otherwise never listen to. A random assortment of celebrities like Nikki Glaser, Mel Gibson, and Ben Affleck. Fitness guys like ultra-athlete Rich Roll and Trump-endorser Joe Rogan. Of course, that way MAGA lies, so outright villains entered the feed, too: Jordan Peterson promoting sobriety with Theo Von, the comedian and podcaster who performed standup before a presidential appearance in Qatar last year because Barron Trump is a fan. And Tucker Carlson’s sobriety story, where even in a moment of honest vulnerability, one can feel the fictional character he plays on television ready to subsume the man at any moment.
